happened. I was afraid of her when I was a little girl, but I think if
I had grown up sooner, I should have enjoyed her heartily. It never used
to occur to me that she had a spark of tenderness or of sentiment, until
just before she was ill, but I have been growing more fond of her ever
since. I might have given her a great deal more pleasure. It was not
long after I was through school that she became so feeble, and of course
she liked best having mamma come to see her; one of us had to be at
home. I have thought lately how careful one ought to be, to be kind and
thoughtful to one's old friends. It is so soon too late to be good to
them, and then one is always so sorry."

I must tell you more of Mrs. Patton; of course it was not long before we
returned her call, and we were much entertained; we always liked to see
our friends in their own houses. Her house was a little way down the
road, unpainted and gambrel-roofed, but so low that the old lilac-bushes
which clustered round it were as tall as the eaves. The Widow Jim (as
nearly every one called her in distinction to the widow Jack Patton, who
was a tailoress and lived at the other end of the town) was a very
useful person. I suppose there must be her counterpart in all old New
England villages. She sewed, and she made elaborate rugs, and she had a
decided talent for making carpets,--if there were one to be made, which
must have happened seldom. But there were a great many to be turned and
made over in Deephaven, and she went to the Carews' and Lorimers' at
house-cleaning time or in seasons of great festivity. She had no equal
in sickness, and knew how to brew every old-fashioned dose and to make
every variety of herb-tea, and when her nursing was put to an end by her
patient's death, she was commander-in-chief at the funeral, and stood
near the doorway to direct the mourning friends to their seats; and I
have no reason to doubt that she sometimes even had the immense
responsibility of making out the order of the procession, since she had